Picnic on the River Cam

So continuing some food- related adventures from England. 

One of the key things to do when visiting Cambridge is to punt the river Cam. "Punting" is the act of propelling a narrow boat up a river or canal by pushing a long pole against the bottom. This famous activity has been going on in Cambridge for hundreds of years, and has even been written about by many famous authors, including E.M. Forest and Virginia Woolf. The Cam runs along the beautiful backs of the colleges, and therefore punting provides some of the prettiest views of the city.

On one of my first days in England, I made the horrible, overambitious mistake of trying to punt the boat myself. It turned out to be a lot more difficult and stressful then I imaged, as the small, peaceful Cam is always teeming with boats full of tourists and students alike. If you aren't really good at it, you ended up running into the sides and getting trapped under all the beautiful, short bridges, in front of the many cute tour guides who flew past your boat.

Smiling and dying of panic.

So for my second trip up the Cam, I figured I'd leave it to the experts. On a beautiful afternoon, we hired a guide, filled our bags with snacks from the Sainsbury's, and enjoyed the river as it was meant to be enjoyed, leisurely. Our guide was really knowledgeable about the different colleges, so as we glided along (he made it look very easy) we heard a bunch of stories about all of ancient buildings we passed. Weird to think how almost everything in Cambridge was older than America.
For "lunch" we had grapes, strawberries, Digestive biscuits, chocolate, and some pink Champagne. Ah, much better.

Picnics are great, but they get way more fun on a boat.